Graphics organisation - Backend with storage speed and space, new network setup

[*JimmyJ*]

Morning guys,
Been given a project at work to come up with a network infrastructure for our graphics and video production team. We have been given a big budget to spec the exsiting network to a much better one.


Current setup is as following;
Workstations are Mac pro xeons with 12Gb of ram and iMac's with 8Gb. Both running 1GB NIC's. Network is 1GB with a link to our SAN over the road via Fibre. Production work is put together using After Affects and Final Cut Pro, with a maximum of 25 staff.
I'm planning on upping the backend to a 10Gig switch and implementing a new SAN consisting of 2 shelfs, 24SAS drives at 600gig each(Space), and 16SSD drives at 200Gig each(Speed), and moving the "new" SAN over to the same site where the production team is located.

Now, with this setup it has made me think about:
1/. Disk-to-Disk backups
2/. Disaster Recovery Options
3/. Data Centre Options
4/. VDI
Ideally, I would want to put in a solution which looks after all of the above including points 1 to 4, but not necessarly 4 yet.
Whats the best way to achieve this?
Regards

 

[cava83]

Have you actually profiled your existing setup and looked at what could be/is your bottle neck?

I think you need to profile before you get something like this together as you might be over specking and you could be spending money on things you do not need and would be better in your pay rise

1) Good, I like D2D, don't like using Tape, off site backup replication and web on crucial parts are ideal.
2) Do you have more than one site accessible i.e could you replicate data there?........
3) Expensive but you might not have much choice.
4) Buzz word. VDI is very expensive, if people don't need their own desktops, TS or XenDesktop is better suited and cheaper. Not sure how this works on the mac model though.

If your desktops are 1GB, don't understand why you need a 10gig switch, please can you explain your backend?

Why do you need a SAN? Complicated and expensive for what you need, a SAN is your last resort. Consider a NAS, better option. Then work out your backup plans from there.

Are you sure you're saturating your NICS on your MP?

Profile and analyse your environment before you spend the money.

 

[*JimmyJ*]

Hey gabi, thanks for getting back in touch.

1) D2D is something which we really need here as the current process isn't the best, and scares me lol
2) We have another suitable site which we could store the data.
3) Having a data centre will be good just in an even of a disaster - all our users can run there and still continue to work should the disaster not be at the other site(s) where the data is held.
4) VDI not to fussed about this at the moment but I'm trying to think long term as well. As we lease our Mac's and if we could get some VDI using thin clients, it could help finanically as well, along with others things.

The reason why I'am thinking 10gig backend even though the current setup has workstations (Mac Pro's) with 1gig NIC's, is I'm trying to show them what the performance difference will be if they move from the Mac Pro's with 1gig NIC's to PC's with 10gig NIC's. I'm thinking to bring in a PC with a 10gig Nic. We have some trial equipment in from Dell, 10gig switch with a SAN, with some of our live production data with the Mac Pro's connected to it for testing. We want another SAN as this will fit in nicely with our current setup, I understand that this might not be the best solution right now, but going forward it fits in with the companies long term plans and objectives.

Whats the best way to profile the current setup?

regards